Outrun the World's Most Dangerous Animals

How big of a head start do you need to get away from a lion, tiger, or bear?

When we introduced Run the Numbers as a column, we promised that topics would range from the obvious—the size of marathons over the past decades—to the not-so-obvious—how fast can a pig run a mile? Well, we covered the size of marathons months ago in our first post. But we haven't delivered on how fast a pig can run a mile. That is, until now.

In the course of my thorough research into how fast a pig can run a mile, I discovered some alarming points.

Next, many other animals are also fast. And they would love to catch you; you are made out of tasty meat, after all.

So, in the interest of keeping our readers alive, I compiled 16 of the most dangerous animals you would want to run away from—and calculated the head start you would need to escape—into a handy list. My math is based on you being able to run six minutes per mile for several miles. That may sound like quite a workout, but keep in mind that you would have an extreme motivation nipping at your heels.

There is some debate over whether elephants actually "run," as there is no aerial phase where all of their feet leave the ground at once. Nevertheless, you don't want to be within 50 meters of a bull elephant if it decides to take the world's largest, fastest jog at you.

Hippopotami are really quite fast. They're also quite mean. Though vegetarians, they kill more than 2000 people a year. You're going to want to stay more than a football field (plus endzones) away from them.

Note: The math here is overly simplistic in that it assumes the animal would slow to a speed slower than your 10 m.p.h. as soon as they've exhausted their maximum speed distance, but this isn't necessarily true. (A cheetah can still outrun you even when she's just jogging.) This is more for fun than an actual scientific guide, so don't take this advice too seriously.